Teflon governor immune to blue state edge

The latest statewide voter registration numbers, released in May before Tuesday's primary election, show that Democrats maintain a comfortable plurality over Republicans.

Of the 5.46 million registered voters here, about 33 percent are Democrats. Republicans, meanwhile, are a little less than 20 percent of registered voters. Those figures show why it remains an uphill slog for the GOP to make significant gains in the Garden State.

Unless, of course, your name is Chris Christie. The Republican governor remains the wild card this year, with approval ratings still hovering above 60 percent and a massive lead in the polls and in fundraising over his presumptive Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono.

How does he do it?

While the figures indicate a huge numbers advantage for Democrats in New Jersey, they also show that nearly half of the voters are unaffiliated and, presumably, able to be swayed to one side or the other. Christie has capitalized on that wide swath of voters, many of whom remain dissatisfied with the state's political affairs and still blame a decade of total Democratic domination for their troubles.

Patrick Murray, director of polling for Monmouth University, has called Christie "the Teflon governor" for his ability to avoid voters' ire over issues such as still-increasing property taxes and a difficult economy.

Christie's decisions to take on difficult issues such as public pension and health benefits reform have endeared him to a population that perceives a public sector run amok. That is part of the reason why unaffiliated voters, totaling nearly 48 percent of the electorate, currently break for Christie, according to recent polling data, with about six out of 10 surveyed saying they approve of the way the governor is handling his job.

But will Christie have long coattails in the fall? The voter totals don't point in that direction. During Christie's term, voters have not been flocking to either party. The numbers have held fairly steady over the past five years, with Democrats tallying more than 1.7 million voters every year since 2009 and Republicans with between 1.03 million and 1.05 million in the same period.

The number of unaffiliated voters, however, has jumped by more than 194,000 in the same period to better than 2.6 million.

The figures are a good reminder of why Christie makes a big deal out of the bipartisan support he's received so far. He not only is looking to score some of that 33 percent of registered Democrats but also peel off a generous number of those unaffiliated voters with his narrative of compromise and cooperation.

That becomes especially important in places such as Monmouth County, where Democrats actually hold a slight advantage over Republicans in registered voters - 99,820 to 96,849. But the county trends Republican, so the governor wants a huge slice of those 226,877 unaffiliated voters there.

While Christie is seeking crossover votes for the fall, Buono's campaign so far has focused on the base. Social issues such as same-sex marriage have been front and center. She also has sought to highlight the differences between her opponent and herself, but trying to cast New Jersey's economic troubles at the feet of the incumbent governor, while logical, runs smack into that Teflon that surrounds Christie. Can she make a dent in the unaffiliated voters' enthusiasm for Christie?

And, in an equally important question, can she improve her standing among the base, a majority of whom still think Christie is doing a good job?

The numbers show how crucial complete Democratic support is for Buono. She must win big in places such as Essex County, one of only two places where registered Democrats outnumber unaffiliated voters (Hudson County is the other). But Essex is one of the areas where machine support for Buono has been lukewarm.

Meanwhile, Christie won a teddy bear for President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and high-fived him on the boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach last week. That is sure to help with the governor's bipartisan appeal.

And Democrats' confidence in Buono certainly was not bolstered by the candidate's lack of face time with the country's most prominent member of her party.

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Teflon governor immune to blue state edge

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